Sunday, 24 April 2016

Location

I was mulching a gardening bed with straw when I saw something from the corner of my eye. At first I thought it was a worm, but after looking closely I noticed it was a slow worm - Anguis fragilis

Video

What is it?

Slow worms are legless lizards, spending most of their time hiding under objects. They are very helpful to gardeners, as they eat a lot of pests. One way of welcoming them to your garden is putting down black plastic mats or some type of metal sheet.We have done this and it works 100% for us. Like all lizards they can drop their tails when under threat so I would advise you not to hold them by the tail. These reptiles are mainly active during twilight. The females give birth to live young. You can often tell if it is a fully grown male, as they normally are much darker and normally have blue spots on their backs. Males also have bigger heads. A lot of people think that they are snakes but that is not true, there are a couple of ways to tell. The most important one is that they blink, just like all other lizards. Snakes do not. The other way of telling is that the tail falls of, just like all other lizards. Adult slow worms grow up to 50 cm long and are known to be one of the longest living lizards in the world!! Living up to 30 years in the wild and depending on how well you take of them,40 years in captivity!

What eats them?

Life cycle

They emerge from hibernation in March, they young take 4-5 months to develop. They young are born in an egg membrane that breaks soon after birth.

Fun facts

As I was writing this blog I thought about a big mat we put down for slow worms, so I went to check it out, when I lifted it there were two huge slow worms. The longest to ever live in captivity was 54 years old!!!!!!

Location

I was recording some tadpoles, when I saw a beautiful dragonfly larvae climbing up a water plant stem.

Video

What is it?

A dragonfly is an insect. A year or two of their lives are spent as nymphs, living in fresh water.

Adults only fly for a couple of weeks, finding a mate to reproduce and then dying. There are at least 3000 species of dragonfly, they are found on every continent except for Antarctica. An adult dragonfly has three body parts, the head, thorax and abdomen. It is a large insect, about 8-9 cm in length. The legs are not used for walking, but are used for holding prey and for perching and climbing on plants.

What do they eat?

Dragonflies eat insects, particularly midges and mosquitoes. They will also eat butterflies, moths, aphids and even smaller dragonflies!!

Sunday, 10 April 2016

Location

I found a beetle larvae under a piece of plastic in my garden that we use to attract slow worms.

Video

Unfortunately, I let the larvae go without recording it. But I did find beetles of the calosoma spp. which I think might be Calosoma externum. Here is a video of the beetles.

What is it?

This beetle is in the Carabidae family commonly known as ground beetles.
I searched on the internet and it appears to be Calosoma inquisitor.
There is not a lot of information about this species on the internet so I am going to give you some information on this genus, their common name being caterpillar hunters

What do they eat?

They feed on caterpillars in oak canopy. For some reason the beetles like female caterpillars more then males . They also feed on: aphids, grubs, snails, earthworms and slugs.

What eats them?

After researching I couldn't find anything conclusive, but I assume: badgers,birds and many others.

Life Cycle

Like all beetles there are 4 stages of development: egg, larvae, pupa and adult. It normally takes around a year to go through this process.

Fun Facts

In 1905 a species of Calosoma was imported to New England for control of the gypsy moth.

One of their favourite caterpillars to eat are processionary caterpillars. If you would like to know about processionary caterpillars click here .